John Shepherd worked for various computer firms and taught at Indiana University of Pennsylvania for 10 years. Shepherd started at teaching at Duquesne in 1987 as a member of the Management Information Systems major. He taught almost all of the MIS courses, including: Computer Systems, Database Management, COBOL Programming, Systems Analysis, Systems Design and many others.

He was always interested in using computers to manage media, such as sound, graphics and video. In 1995, he started the first Multimedia Master's degree in the country. He also oversaw the creation of the first Multimedia computer lab in the country in 1994.

He wrote two textbooks, one on Database Management and another on authoring E-Learning applications using Authorware. In the 1980s, he started two software companies. One was an expert system to monitor clinical prescription data, and another was the first hospital pharmacy application to run on local area networks.

In 2005, the Multimedia and Journalism majors merged to form the Journalism and Multimedia Arts department, now known as the Media department. It has several undergraduate and graduate programs.